Digital Humanities Initiative

About the Cluster

The Digital Humanities Initiative at UC Santa Cruz was launched by the Institute for Humanities Research in January 2009. It is constituted by a group of UCSC faculty from the Humanities, Arts and Engineering divisions who meet regularly to discuss the impact of digital media on research in the Humanities. The fundamental concern of the Humanities is with the production and interpretation of culture. Focusing on the means of communication—language, inscription, visualization and materialization—and the modes of interpretation—experiential, aesthetic, metaphysical—the Humanities at its core addresses the ways that human beings make sense of their worlds.

The emergence of digital media has the potential to dramatically expand the range and dimensions of Humanities research while also returning us to a reexamination of our core principles of communication and interpretation. Digital media present opportunities for reconceiving spatiality and temporality, drastically expanding our access to and dissemination of information, and creatively reimagining new possibilities for expression. Perhaps most importantly, addressing the implications of digital media for Humanities research compels us to question existing disciplinary boundaries and pursue transdisciplinary research methodologies and agendas. A primary goal for the Digital Humanities Initiative, therefore, is to explore ways that Humanities research agendas can converge with and mutually advance research in digital media across the entire campus.

Affiliated Faculty

Pranav Anand, Assistant Professor of Linguistics
Adrian Brasoveanu, Assistant Professor of Linguistics
Sharon Daniel, Professor of Film & Digital Media; Chair, Digital Arts and New Media MFA Program
Nathaniel Deutsch, Professor of History and Literature; Co-Director, Center for Jewish Studies; Director, Institute for Humanities Research
Carla Freccero, Professor of Literature; Director of the Center for Cultural Studies
Susan Gillman, Professor, Literature; Founding Editor, Flashpoints
Wlad Godzich, Professor of Literature
Kirsten Silva Gruesz, Professor of Literature; Director of the Latino Literary Cultures Project
Jorge Hankamer, Professor of Linguistics; Chair of Philosophy
Kimberly Lau, Associate Professor of American Studies; Provost, Oakes College
Michael Mateas, Associate Professor of Computer Science; MacArthur Foundation Chair
Matt O’Hara, Associate Professor of History
Greg O’Malley, Assistant Professor of History
Warren Sack, Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Film & Digital Media
Richard Terdiman, Professor of Literature, Founding Editor of Flashpoints
Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Associate Professor of Computer Science
Jim Whitehead, Associate Professor of Computer Science
Alice Yang, Associate Professor and Graduate Director of History; Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Pacific War Memories